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But would she have made love with him last night if her defenses hadn’t been crushed by the knowledge that she wasn’t a Fontaine? The answer wasn’t clear enough for Harper’s liking. She felt lost and adrift. It’s why she couldn’t sleep, couldn’t make her mind function the way it normally did. No patterns emerged out of the chaos of her thoughts. Her ability to plan and make things happen had left her. She was a shell, waiting to be filled with purpose.
Harper passed her hand over her dry, tired eyes before levering herself off the cushions and heading to make coffee. Her cell phone chirped. A text message. Probably Mary wondering why she hadn’t picked up the report on last night’s numbers.
Harper picked up the phone, intending to shut it off. For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel like being responsible. But she really should call Mary. Unless Harper explicitly stated her unavailability, her assistant expected her to answer, and if she didn’t, Mary would probably send security to check on her.
Heaving a sigh, Harper dialed. With Fontaine Ciel open and running smoothly, she could hand over the reins to her general manager for a while. When her assistant picked up, Harper said, “I’m going to take some time off. If anything comes up have Bob handle it.”
As simple as that, she was free. She’d expected to feel lighter with the concerns of the hotel off her shoulders, but it was only a matter of time before her hours of playing hooky would end and she’d take up the reins once more.
Mug in hand, she headed off to shower. In the past ten hours she’d watched the entire season Ashton had spent in Europe. She’d chosen these particular episodes to watch because she’d visited several of the same countries. The contrast between her experiences and his could not have been more dramatic. He loved what he did. The people he met fascinated him. His culinary encounters often astonished him. Not everything was to his taste, but he was always game to try.
She’d visited and left countries without ever getting to know their cultures. Most of the time she was on a tight deadline that left little room to go exploring. She’d been proud of how hard she worked, had wallowed in her arrogance that she knew best in almost every situation.
In her own way, she was as committed to her path as Ashton was to his. She’d grown impatient with his lack of focus on the restaurant. How many people had she frustrated with her inability to relax? She drove herself hard and expected her employees to follow in her footsteps. Being a woman, she’d known she’d have to work hard to prove to her grandfather that she was executive material, worthy of someday taking her place as head of the family business.
All that work only to find out she’d wasted the past twenty-nine years of her life chasing a goal that wasn’t hers to pursue. The futility of it all infuriated her. Leaving her suite, Harper headed to the parking garage where she retrieved her c
ar and headed to the mall for a little shopping therapy.
Harper cruised store after store without buying anything while she pondered how profoundly her life had changed. She had to tell her grandfather the truth, didn’t she? Neither Scarlett nor Violet thought it was a good idea. But what toll would living a lie take on her psyche?
Sick of questions that had no easy answers, Harper ducked into a bookstore, deciding what she needed was a few hours of getting lost in someone else’s problems. It had been too long since she’d taken time to read something besides reports. She picked up a copy of her favorite author’s latest novel and headed to the front to pay.
While she waited behind a mother with two children under the age of five, her attention drifted toward a display of coffee table books. The leopard on the cover of one caught her attention. As a child she’d spent hours flipping through a book of African wildlife photos at her grandmother’s home in the Hamptons. She’d found the images riveting and realized now that it was probably what had planted the seeds of longing to travel.
The hair on Harper’s arms lifted as she was struck by a sudden realization. Penelope had engaged in an affair with a wildlife photographer. Was it just a coincidence that she’d given Harper’s grandmother a book of wildlife photos? Deep in her soul, Harper knew it wasn’t.
She stepped out of the checkout line and headed toward the display that had caught her attention. This book wasn’t the same as the one in her grandmother’s library. Gripped by sudden urgency, she dialed her grandmother’s Hamptons house. As expected, Tilly, her grandmother’s housekeeper, answered.
“Hi, Tilly, it’s Harper.”
“Hello, Harper. I’m afraid your grandmother isn’t here at the moment.”
“Oh, that’s right. She mentioned her plans to go shopping when I spoke with her last Sunday.” Which was why Harper knew she could call at this time and accomplish her goal without explaining why she was so interested in a book of photographs. “Could you do me a favor?”
“Of course.”
“There’s a book of African wildlife photos in the library that my mother gave Grandma for her birthday a long time ago. I used to look at it when I visited, but I don’t think I’ve see it since I was thirteen or fourteen. Could you find it for me?”
“Give me a second.” If Tilly thought the request was odd, coming out of the blue like this, she gave no sign. The Hamptons house had a five-thousand-square-foot first floor so it took a few minutes before Tilly came back on the line. “I have it here.”
Harper exhaled in relief. She’d been half afraid that the book would have been lost in the past fifteen years. Her grandmother wasn’t the most sentimental woman and might not have kept a birthday present from her daughter that long.
“Can you tell me who the photographer was?”
“Greg LeDay.”
“Perfect. Thank you, Tilly. And don’t mention to anyone that I called. I’ll check in with Grandma on Sunday as usual.”
“She always loves to hear from you.”
Harper ended the call and felt a bit light-headed. Was Greg LeDay her father? With shaking fingers, she tapped his name into the internet browser on her phone and waited impatiently for the search results to come up. To her immense delight he had a website. She went straight to his bio page and spent a long moment staring at the black-and-white photo of a handsome, rugged man in his mid-fifties standing beside a battered jeep, a camera with an enormous lens in his hands. Five giraffes loped across the landscape behind him.
His easy posture and half grin reminded her so much of Ashton that she couldn’t breathe for a second. The two men were obviously cut from the same cloth. No wonder she was so drawn to the man who starred in The Culinary Wanderer. She had an adventurer’s blood running through her veins.
After several minutes of staring at the photo, she began exploring LeDay’s website. In addition to being a photographer, he also acted as a guide for others who were interested in taking pictures of wildlife. In fact, he had several tours lined up in the coming months. One left in two days.
An idea bloomed. She emailed LeDay about joining the safari. Abandoning the book she’d come to purchase for a travel guide to South Africa, Harper headed for her car and the nearest sporting goods store. Within ten minutes, she stood before a display of travel bags and finally understood the importance of Ashton’s go bag. Pack light and be ready to take off for the next exotic location at a moment’s notice.
